


Timing

by Phoebonica



Category: Among Us (Video Game)
Genre: Based on a True Story, Canon-Typical Violence, Everyone is basically an OC, Gen, Self-Indulgent, Self-Insert, but i mean why do we have character tags anyway, details changed to protect the innocent and/or because i forgot them, purple and lime are barely in this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:40:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27670820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoebonica/pseuds/Phoebonica
Summary: Sometimes you win by a lucky fluke.Sometimes you have to pay the price for it.At least Cyan knows the Skeld will make it home.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	Timing

_Upper Engine aligned_.

Cyan ticks off the task on their pad, and almost smiles at the satisfying beep as the text turns yellow for a task half-done. Down to Lower, next. Through the hallway past Security and the reactor. There’s a camera there. Someone must be watching cams. No one will try anything.

Their hands are damp with sweat inside their suit and their stomach is knotted, but they move toward the corridor and down, the muffled clanging of their boots against the floor the only sound they hear above the roar of the engines. The dull rhythm of their steps is calming, steady. _Dun dun dun dun dun,_ a faint metallic echo. Nothing lurking in the shadows. No monster with a friend’s face, waiting to pounce and rip them in two, just like…

Don’t think about it. Follow the list. The list knows what to do. If they have tasks to do, they can keep moving. If they have tasks, they don’t have time to curl up in a ball and rock and shake and flap.

 _Dun dun d-dun. Dundun. Dun d-dun_. Cyan stops walking. There’s someone else up ahead, another rhythm clashing with their own. _Okay. Okay, don’t panic. The engines need fueling, too, and you’re not on fuel duty today. There’s a good reason for somebody else to be in Lower._ _It’s not a trap. It’s not – necessarily a trap._

The engine itself takes up most of the room. Heart in their throat, Cyan steps around it.

It’s Green. Pacing back and forth, agitated. Green is here, and –

Red is here too.

There’s a _lot_ of red. There’s only half of Red.

Green is right there.

Green is looking right at Cyan.

Cyan can’t feel their hands or their stomach or their throat any more. Cyan is numb, watching from above as they step forward, reaching for their pad.  They don’t take their eyes off Green as they move closer to the body. They don’t want to be closer at all, but their pad has to be. Enough to pick up the monitors in Red’s suit, confirming their ID and lack of vital signs.

Green watches. Green doesn’t lunge toward them. Cyan could swear they see a flash of red from behind their visor.

“Any reason you haven’t called this in, Green?” Cyan asks, tone deceptively light, as though they don’t expect the words to be their last. The kill must be recent, if Green hasn’t attacked them yet, but Cyan can’t know _how_ recent. Any second now there could be a knife in them, hands at their throat, teeth and claws rending them open.

Green tenses, their stance shifting. Preparing to spring.

The button on Cyan’s pad lights up, REPORT in bold letters flashing at the edge of their vision. They don’t dare take their eyes off Green to look at it, but  if they fumble it…

Their fingers  tap down on the smooth surface with a buzz of haptic feedback.

The alarm blares out across the ship.

And right beside Cyan and Green, the vent clangs open.

Orange leaps out of it, blade flashing in the red emergency light. Their eyes meet Cyan’s, and  in the split-second before the three of them warp into the cafeteria, their snarl fades into a look of confused dismay.

And in that split-second, Cyan knows two things.

The  _Skeld_ will be making it home.

And Cyan won’t.

* * *

There are only five of them at the meeting. Cyan hadn’t known it was so close. If they’d been a little slower on the button, they’d be dead on that engine room floor and Lime and Purple would be doomed.

They lay out what they saw, answer questions, counter defences, and all the while they wonder how their voice can sound so calm and collected, how their hands don’t twitch and quiver. The world is far away, while they’re deep inside themself, watching through a layer of glass even thicker than the clear plastic of their visor.

A bleep as votes are cast, and the block of ice lodged in their stomach lurches as they realise they haven’t established with the other two who to vote off _first_. The ejection can only take place if a majority agrees. A tie would end everything.

But when the votes pop up, three marks are by Orange’s name. It makes sense. Cyan _knows_ what they saw, but Green could still offer some excuse, however unlikely. Orange, though – nobody who belongs on this ship could fit into those vents.

They all watch as the body floats past the window, tumbling into the dark. One down.

Cyan looks down at the table, the emergency button. Their fingers itch to press it, hands flapping at their sides. But it’s sunk down into the table, withdrawn until the cooldown period has passed. There were cases in the early days of crewmembers going berserk, mobs fuelled by fear and paranoia throwing huge swaths of their innocent crewmates into the darkness. Impostors who barely had to raise a hand, only speak a few poisoned words into the right ears. Worse, ships that returned with only one or two crewmates left, when it was later clear there’d never been any impostor at all.

The cooldown is meant to prevent that. Encourage caution, and reasoned discussion.

They can press the button in a few more seconds, but Cyan feels Green’s eyes on them from across the table, hard and cold, and knows they’ll never have the chance.

Another siren splits the air, red lights flashing.

 _Warning. Reactor meltdown in thirty seconds_.

Cyan turns and runs, instinct guiding their steps. Lime and Purple are just ahead of them, boots clanging out a syncopated rhythm.

Green is just behind.

They reach Upper Engine. It’s not so long ago that Cyan was here, ticking off one more task from their list and feeling the quiet satisfaction of a job well done. Lime and Purple make straight for the reactor.

Cyan lets their footsteps falter. Just a little.

Their heart stutters as a hand clamps round their arm, wrenching them back, but they’re not surprised at all. How could they be?

Green’s fist slams into their back, between their shoulderblades, driving the wind from them, and it’s not until it draws back for the second blow that Cyan even feels the sting of the blade in Green’s hand, its serrated edge tearing at their skin.

“This is for Orange,” Green snarls, and drives the knife in again. And again.

Again.

One more time, and Cyan is falling, on the floor, tasting iron in their mouth. Green is standing over them, their body twisting and opening in ways it shouldn’t move.

The pain is slipping far away now. Cyan is slipping away.

The last thing they see, beyond Green’s shifting, gaping form, is that the lights have stopped flashing. The sirens are quiet.

Cyan closes their eyes.

They’re almost smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> This actually happened. Poor Orange. I don't know if they were having lag issues or just vented at the exact wrong time, but it was one of the more dramatic moments I've had in-game.


End file.
